Please please help - aibu to be cracking up and how do I fix it?

[AlpineButterfly]

In a nut shell..
Ds1 - 20m, ds2 - 8m and bf (relevant)
DH leaves for work at 6, home at 4.30. I leave for work as he arrives.
The whole time I'm at work the boys just scream. The toddler is jealous, the baby is clingy. Baby wants bf to sleep and repeatedly wakes the toddler with his screaming.
I get home from work between 8 and 9.30 depending on the day, put baby to bed (he needs milk and won't take a bottle) and then start tidying up as DH has had his hands full. He then goes up to study.

He's only home two days this month as he's either working, at lectures or clinic.

I'm on my knees with worry and stress and tiredness. I have to work otherwise we can't feed ourselves. DH has to study as it's our way out of poverty. It all just feels so helpless.

Aibu to feel like there is no solution? I've just read a thread about solo bedtime with a 5yo and 7mo. Everyone was full of stories about how hard it is doing solo bedtime. I just want to cry

Would you be able to swap to a weekend job? Then weekday evenings could be shared

Can you move the baby off breast to bottle? Fill him with food and water now hes 8months so he won't miss the breast so much? and DH spend more time with the 2 year old whilst you're out so he's not jealous. I honestly don't know how people do it sorry just ideas!

I have no words of wisdom, but just want to give you a big un-mumsnetty hug and say "this too shall pass"

DH works one Saturday per month and is at uni two weekends a month 9-5.30 the sat and sun. (In fact, he's only got two days off this month)

Baby is a bottle refuser but is just beginning to take v small amounts from a cup.

I'm sure at 8m ds1 was pretty settled with his sleep

It sounds really hard, many sympathies.
With the baby, might it buy more non-crying time by moving to a 9.30pm bedtime that fits your schedule better? So can you do a later wake-up in the morning and move active play to the afternoon so you feed to sleep at 4pm for a long nap? Then dad can give dinner when the baby wakes.

Do you have no friends or family who can help?

When smdoes the baby nap? Coild he have an additional afternoon nap and then be awake but not scresming with tiredness.

Hi OP - that was my thread - I’m in the spare room now to get some rest whilst DH does baby overnight.

What you’re describing sounds very hard - soul destroying - I think I’d approach my making incremental changes. I always felt like little changes were easier and then suddenly the cumulative effect was really welcome change.

The tricky thing is that with such a small age gap you don’t get any downtime.

If I were you I’d be fighting to get the baby to take a bottle. Whilst I was upset to not be able to breastfeed my children, my husband being able to do overnights was really all that got me through sometimes.

An afternoon nap probably does sound best. Afternoon naps don't often happen as I can't really leave the 20 month old to put the baby to bed but I'll see what I can do.

Just up with a wide awake baby after toddler woke screaming.

It's not particularly helpful that dh is stressed about it but I get it - it's tough when they're both tetchy. Really tough.

I'm desperately trying to power through but sleepless nights, having the boys all day, going to work and then coming home to a stressed husband who is complaining he needs to study isn't really very helpful

No advice but this sounds really tough. I hope you find a way to get some down time. Sometimes the only thing you can do is just try to keep putting one foot in front of the other - get through each day as it comes. It sounds like things are looking promising for you as a family in the long term - I know it's hard to keep hold of that when things are so hard day-to-day, though. Best wishes to you.

Thankyou. That does sound fair - we'll keep plodding. We're pretty relaxed people until we're not then it feels like everything is too much. This is only his first year of five at uni and it feels like a huge mountain to climb. It is taking so much work from both of us just to get his studying done thank Christ I did my studies when I was early twenties it's also kind of frustrating as o didn't choose to have two very young ones and be on my own 29/31 days per month. I probably wouldn't have had my second if I knew

Do you have more earning power than your DH? Could you go back to work full time with your DH studying over a shorter period of time and looking after the children?

It's a really tricky dilemma. I do have more earning power but my profession if I go back to working days isn't very family friendly so DH will have to have the boys all day and take much of the responsibility in the evenings. I wouldn't earn enough to pay for childcare. Working freelance in the evenings I have a much higher hourly rate but I'm limited to the evenings. I don't think we'd really be better off. And I think having the boys is more tiring than his job so he may have less energy for studies.

I think if he goes full time for his course it only saves a year. It's a very full on part time course over five years

No, it’s realky not easy. Are the boys sharing a room? Is that partly why they wake each other? If so, could you guys sleep downstairs for a while?

Having a second is really tough. I’m finding it really hard to manage and I’ve nothing like the challenges you do.

I co sleep with the baby and my husband sleeps on the sofa. Our walls are really thin so despite the use of a white noise machine the sound still travels and amplifies between the walls. End of the.month my housemate moves out though so hopefully I'll get the baby out of my bed then. They can sleep on opposite sides of the house then!!

Could he postpone his studies for a year?